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Attribute Data

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Definition

In industry, especially for transactional or service processes, data collected is often in the form of classification of items into one of various categories or attributes. Such data is termed attribute data.

Examples

Some examples:

Production items rated as 'Go/No Go' upon inspection
Order shipments classified as 'On time/Late'
Product/service quality classified as 'Good/Fair/Poor'
Bank accounts sorted by type of account: 'Residential/Small Business/Corporate'

Attribute data may be presented as raw data where items are simply identified as belonging to one of several mutually exclusive classes, or may be summarized as counts of items in each class or category. In the latter form, the data are also called discrete data, because counts can take only discrete or whole values. Discrete data is sometimes treated as variable data, especially when there are a large number of counts, such as with the number of calls processed succesfully at a call center each day for a year.

See Also

Nominal Data